Transistors are key components of modern integrated circuits. To satisfy the requirements of increasingly faster speed, the drive currents of transistors need to be increasingly greater. Since the drive currents of transistors are proportional to gate widths of the transistors, transistors with greater widths are preferred.
The increase in gate widths, however, conflicts with the requirements of reducing the sizes of semiconductor devices. Fin field-effect transistors (finFET) were thus developed.
The introduction of finFETs has the advantageous feature of increasing drive current without the cost of occupying more chip area. However, finFET transistors raise numerous issues relating to electrostatic discharge (ESD) performance.